I’ve decided to start you all at the beginning and fill you in on the journey I’ve taken so far in my attempt to achieve publication.

I’m hoping this will help do a few things:

1. Keep me from forgetting the long and winding road it indeed has been. Truth be told, like childbirth, I think I’m already blocking out some of the more painful and upsetting events.
2. When (notice I’m saying not if, but when) I eventually get published, keep anyone from referring to my publication as an “overnight success”.  Because seriously…
3. Allow me to get the whole long and boring story out, once and for all, in one place, thereby quenching my compulsion to tell anyone who asks the entire play-by-play story of my road to publication.
4. Hopefully help anyone who’s at an earlier juncture on this road than I am…

So, with that in mind, “Let’s start at the very beginning…a very good place to start.” Oh, I love Julie Andrews!

Once upon a time there was a girl who felt frustrated and thwarted in her attempts to get a novel published. Until one day it it dawned upon her she had never completed a novel, nor submitted one for publication, and that was the day she also realized this was not going to happen by magic but was going to require butt-in-seat, pedal-to-metal, blood-sweat-and-tears, hard work. So we will call that day, Day One.

On Day One she chose a target, attained a goal, got motivated and started writing in a focused manner and her whole world changed.

Interestingly enough, I never thought I’d write YA. When I was a YA myself I read voraciously. I read EVERYTHING. I read stuff that was YA (even though it wasn’t called that yet – check out this post at Two Writers Talking to see some examples), I read stuff that was “too young” for me (Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden) and I read grown-up stuff that I probably didn’t fully understand.

But when I thought of myself as writing, it never occured to me it would be anything but a grown-up novel. And the project I had proceeded the farthest on was, in fact, an adult novel on which I had written about 50,000 words. However, I hadn’t finished it (still haven’t, but that’s another story).

Then I stumbled across this contest. Held by Orca Publishing, it was called “So you think you can write” and was looking for YA submissions, minimum 30,000 words.

I sat down and started writing. Finished at 31,000ish words and thought, “there done!” Sent it off and waited to win.

So much of that is ridiculous, now that I look back on it. Just in case you’re still so early in the game that you don’t know what was ridiculous about it, I’ll save you the grief of learning for yourself:

1. 30,000 words is a ludicrous length for the kind of fiction I write. That same story – since revised about five times – is now approximately 61,500 words and it’s still a relatively short novel. 30,000 words is fine for some categories but not for the type of older teen reader I’m going for. But I didn’t know.
2. I didn’t have anyone read it over. Didn’t get any feedback. Didn’t even put it aside for a month and read it with fresh eyes. I was on target, on a roll, on deadline and I got those 30,000 words out on time. Good for me!
3. As if I was going to win the contest…

However, ridiculous as all that was, I finished a manuscript. FINISHED! My story had a beginning a middle and an END. It was the first time I could say that. I had something to work with and I’ve been working with it ever since. I’ll tell you about the next part of that work on my next installment of “Attempted Publication…”

Very interesting news, which I first learned of courtesy of Nathan Bransford’s excellent blog (seriously, if you want to keep up-to-date on e-books, technology, self-publishing, etc. you’ll want to subscribe to Nathan’s blog).

Essentially, Amazon, which has already facilitated the bypassing of a big chunk of the traditional book process by offering e-books direct to Kindle, is now signing up its own authors, thereby bypassing agents and publishers. So interesting…

I think I love this story. Which is maybe surprising because I also really, really love all that’s good about traditional publishing. I love the care and love that goes into creating a book. I love that much of the dealing that goes on in publishing is based on codes of conduct and gentleman’s agreements and “it’s just not done that way.” (this drives my husband crazy when he asks me why I can’t just spend a day in Toronto and go knock on publishers’ doors – shock, horror, blacklisting!).

I love physical books and the places that hold them (libraries, bookshelves).

But.

The thing is, ultimately I’m a champion of a good story well told and anything that doesn’t threaten that, and maybe promotes it is fine by me.

I have immense respect for the vast majority of agents and publishers out there. I worked for a publisher, selling university textbooks, and I heard all the complaints. Why are books so expensive? You’re making a mint. I can photocopy it for $17 so why do you sell it for $70? And so on and so forth. I go back to my earlier comment about love and care (and blood, sweat and tears) going into these books. $70 is a deal.

I think most publishers and agents love books too and are in the business for love and want to nurture new talent.

But. (Oh, another one).

From experience, I will say that some – a very small few some but still some – are quite, for want of a gentler word, rude. They emanate more than a whiff of entitlement. Their submission guidelines are dismissive to the point I sometimes wonder why have submission guidelines at all if you so clearly disdain those submitting to you?

I know, I know, I know they see tonnes of garbage. I know. I’ve sent them some garbage in the past (let’s be clear; not on purpose. I didn’t know. You never do until it’s too late…). And I have no problem with being clear about expectations and summarily dismissing those who, for example, submit cookbooks to a press which clearly says “NO COOKBOOKS”.

But there are some – and if you’ve submitted you’ve come across them too – who say something just shy of “you’re not good enough for us, god knows why you want to try, but if you still do want to bang your head against a wall, go ahead and send us the manuscript you’ve spent hundreds of hours slaving over.”

You know what? There’s no need for that. Most of the really reputable and successful agents and publishers I’ve come across are polite, businesslike and, sometimes, even friendly (I’m not saying they have to be friendly but it’s a nice bonus).

So I kind of like Amazon entering the fray because it offers another option. Another outlet. I’m not even saying I’d choose the Amazon route over a traditional publisher (not saying they’d have me either) but I am saying when there are more choices we all have to pull up our socks. The cream rises to the top. Democracy has a chance to rule.

I’ve already seen immense changes in just the last few years. My first round of submissions, just over two years ago, were entirely – yes, 100 per cent – on paper, by mail. The round I’m in now is entirely – also 100 per cent – digital. I think that change was driven by both those submitting and those receiving; it was more convenient for both.

I guess I feel like having more choices means, instead of being slavishly thankful that anyone will even glance at our work, authors can maybe read different websites, check out submission guidelines, see who feels like a nice “fit” for their project.

And if there are enough people out there who want to be condescended to and patronized and told they’re probably not good enough, that small percentage of presses and agents who do that will survive.

If not, power to the people.

Last word to Amazon:

“Amazon executives, interviewed at the company’s headquarters here, declined to say how many editors the company employed, or how many books it had under contract. But they played down Amazon’s power and said publishers were in love with their own demise.

“It’s always the end of the world,” said Russell Grandinetti, one of Amazon’s top executives. “You could set your watch on it arriving.”

ETA: Here is an example of one of the most lovely, professional and respectful sets of agent submission guidelines I’ve ever seen. Honestly, if I was ever so lucky as to be choosing between two agents these submission guidelines alone would be about a 90 per cent factor in my decision. In case you’re too busy to click through, here’s the clincher sentence: “we are grateful for all queries and submissions. We understand that your work is important to you and we thank you for considering us.” I hear this agent writes kick-ass rejection letters so I look forward to getting mine and possibly sharing that with you as well!

I should preface this post by recommending that you first read this post by Mary Kole at Kidlit.com because, I tell ya, the comments section alone will tell you this is a topic people have many and strong opinions about.

What made me think about this was a recent YA book I read. It was an OK read. There were some issues in it which detracted from my enjoyment of it and they revolved around consistency and character believability and authenticity, and I think the way profanity was handled was part of it.

Very early on in the book the main character loses his virginity with a girl who is also losing her virginity. So, obviously this book is about sex. I mean, really, there’s quite a lot of teenage sex in this book. However, for the most part the sex is referred to using “hooking up” or other similar euphemisms. In fact, maybe some of the characters I think were having sex weren’t having sex at all because maybe they were just “hooking up” and maybe that could be less than sex. At any rate, if you’re going to make the decision to have lots of teenage sex in your YA book (which in itself can be controversial) I think you have to be fairly straightforward when referring to that sex.

But the interesting thing was, about three-quarters of the way through the book – I mean, literally on page 150 or so – this paragraph appeared which contained no less than 16 f-bombs. Seriously, every fourth or fifth word was f*&%.

It was out of context, overkill, awkward and it definitely pulled me out of the story (and you know how I feel about interruptions). And I thought why?

I still don’t know why. I read to the end of the book and there were no more crazy explosions of profanity like that and people continued to “hook up” and it was so weird I still think about it several weeks later.

I wonder was the author trying to add some edge into the book? Did that paragraph slip through in editing? Did the particular incident which prompted all the swearing in the book actually relate to something unusually traumatic in the author’s life? It was so weird…

So, not to say I have any answers when it comes to profanity, or in fact anything graphic, in YA or in any writing, for that matter, but for what it’s worth here’s my approach.

My basic rule of thumb is to avoid swearing. That’s not to say no-way-never. It’s just to say if my character says Holy S*#$, she means HOLY S*&$! If she says it all the time I don’t think you get the same sense of, well, you know Holy…

So far, I haven’t written a manuscript in which my main character has sex. I have, however, written some (I think) fairly graphic kissing scenes. I guess I subscribe to the “commit to what you’re representing” philosophy. If you’re representing kissing, make it intense. And by the way, for a great example of intense sex that’s never actually shown (at least I think it’s sex but I’m open to arguments it’s “hooking up”), did anyone see the season premiere of The Good Wife? If not, check out this particular scene.

I also don’t hesitate, where appropriate (I think), to have my characters sweat. I have been known to say my character is having a pee. Both of these things have been called out by critique readers who didn’t like them. It’s one of those things. I thought about both and in one case, removed the peeing reference. In other cases, though, I’ve kept the sweat. What can I say? My (literary) girls are hard core – they sweat – that’s life.

I’m afraid this isn’t a post filled with answers. Rather it’s one leading to questions. How graphic do you like the books you read to be? How comfortable are you with writing graphically?

ETA: After scheduling this post to publish I was listening to an interview with Paul Kennedy of CBC’s Ideas (I’m a total sucker for Ideas; I just love listening to it at night in my half-lit kitchen while I prepare the next day’s school lunches). If you’ve ever heard Paul Kennedy on the radio, it would be hard to imagine a more dignified-sounding man. Well, in response to a question about how he got involved in a program he was hosting at the NAC, Paul Kennedy said “I got up in the middle of the night to go for a pee, and…” Hallelujah! If Paul Kennedy can weave having a pee into his narrative, I can too, because I’m infinitely less dignified than him.

Oh we have such great new powers in this technologically-rich world of the internet. It’s within our hands to publish our own words for all the world to see. We don’t need to have someone’s stamp of approval or wait for them to have an available slot in their publication schedule. We can just buy a domain name, pay for hosting and off we go. This entire site cost me about $67.00 to get up and running and I can use it to publish whatever I like.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I have some thoughts about this. I’m going to refer you back to my post on privacy at Two Writers Talking, as well as the “To Tell or not to Tell” post.

However today’s thought, while related, is slightly different. This is a more practical reason for thinking twice before you publish. In my “To Tell or not to Tell” post, I talked about “out there” writers. Those who aren’t at all shy about putting their work out for all to see, and comment on, and maybe critique, positively or negatively.

I can see the allure of that. I can see wanting to get some “real time”, “real life” feedback. Wanting to know that either you’re doing lots of things right or maybe having people point out a sticking point you can work on. I can also see how sometimes you just want to see your words in print. You want to share. I get it. I feel that way too sometimes.

HOWEVER.

You knew that was coming right?

Let me warn you what might happen if one day you decide to throw your short story up on your blog and see how people like it. Or, better yet, let the CBC warn you. Here’s an excerpt from the rules for this year’s CBC Short Story Contest:

“All works that have appeared in print or on the Internet, including self-published works, as well as works that have been broadcast or delivered in front of a public audience, are considered previously published and are therefore not eligible for the competition.”

Hopefully, with the help of my bolding, you’ll see what I’m getting at here. Sticking your story up on your blog, or giving a public reading at a local coffeehouse might seem fun, or harmless, but it means you’re publishing your work.

Very important. That work is now published. Which might be fine with you. Or might not. If you truly think it’s the best thing you’ve ever written, you should ask if your blog is the place you want to see your best work ever published.

Maybe it is. That’s fine. I’m just saying please think about it first. You never know when you’re going to get a great break; when you might finally have a chance to have your work published, and the last thing you want to have to do is say “Uh-oh, I already posted that on the internet – is that OK?”

Because it might not be. And that would be a major bummer.

I know it says “another” great book and, actually, this is the first great book I’m telling you about on this blog but I’m sticking with “another” because the idea is there are so many great books out there and whenever I read one I’m going to tell you about it.

Starting now.

With Would You by Marthe Jocelyn.

If you click over to Amazon (link above) and read about this book you’ll see alot of nice things being said.

They’re all true.

This is a fantastic read. It’s gripping, realistic, funny, sad. I laughed, I cried – seriously – not being funny I really did.

It’s Canadian. Yay!

It has great dialogue. Fantastic character development. Good pacing.

Is it perfect? Well, by definition, not, but I can’t think of what’s wrong with it because as I pointed out in an earlier post, it’s captivating and that’s all that matters. I finished it in a week when I had a million-bijillion other things to do. When my kids were home from school for an extra day due to a fire at their school (yes, I know, it’s every kid’s fantasy come true…) and I was on deadline. It was compelling and page turning and, also (and this was nice) I wasn’t sad when it ended. It felt like the right time for it to end. I was pleased with the time I had spent with it and didn’t feel cheated; just enriched.

Would You was a lovely reading experience and I got it from my library so you could probably find it in yours.

Do you have another great book to pass on?